Snacking habits of the nation

Snacking takes us from meal-to-meal, sometimes even when we're not hungry. It's just what we've become accustomed too.

The results of a recent study, conducted by Wonderful Pistachios, has revealed that the UK is a nation of snackers. The traditional three meals a day is officially no longer the norm, with more than a third of us preferring to eat at least five times a day.

The study revealed that it was the older generation of 46-65 year olds that tended to stick to three meals a day. In stark contrast over 82 per cent of 18-24 year olds preferred to supplement meals with snacks, eating more than four times a day. Unsurprisingly only 5.7 per cent of us claim to never snack.

Boredom was given as the biggest reason to snack with more than half of respondents citing this as why they indulge in a favourite treat. The second and third most popular time to snack was when watching a film and watching soaps on TV, suggesting that we are still a nation of couch potatoes.

Interestingly and despite numerous healthy eating messages a third of us struggle to swap our usual snacks for a healthier option. Lack of flavour in healthy snacks was a huge contributing factor for this. A fifth of people said that they would find it easier to swap if the healthier options were more flavour-some.